The people-pleasing and performing is 100% ingrained in me, partly because I was a little brown girl growing up in a very white, homogeneous community in San Diego - where, in second grade, I was called a terrorist.

Growing up, I was aware of the kids-don't-like-vegetables trope, but it didn't make much sense to me. I never had any choice; all the traditional Iranian dishes my mom cooked teemed with herbs and vegetables.

There's a certain kind of dark-crusted sourdough bread I'm incapable of resisting. A sixth sense alerts me anytime I veer within a three-block radius of a bakery offering tangy country loaves with mahogany crusts. Without fail, I'll make my way inside and buy one, even if there's already half a loaf growing stale on my countertop.

Growing up, I thought salt belonged in a shaker at the table and nowhere else.

I think there were so many times that I just felt so overwhelmed by school and by my relationships with my friends and I felt like I was going to be stuck in high school forever and I was never going to achieve my dreams.

For a homosexual, he's one of the nicest guys I ever met. And he's good at what he does. You know, he's got leadership ability, and if these people here would listen to him, he would take 'em a long way. But anyway, me and Richard got to be pretty good friends - not in a homosexual way, that's for sure.

You tend to meet on a more regular basis with people in your industry, and reality being what it is, you tend to meet with them at the particular level that you occupy; so that develops a fraternity relationship.

Brando's a family friend. His mother gave my father a shot to be in a play at the Omaha Community Playhouse. That was the first production he was in.